And otherwise, well, there’s not that much going on. I assume this to be the final strides of the calm before the storm of people returning to their offices after the summer.

Apple has won a major battle against Samsung, forcing a ban on eight Samsung mobile devices that are already on the market in addition to a £1.05bn payment in damages for patent violations. Yes that’s right, Samsung-user, you may hate Apple, but it’s still the same technology you got. Not similar, THE SAME. The case is not over though, an injunction hearing will follow on 20 September. read article

In the background, RyanAir is seeking regulatory approval for its take-over bid for Aer Lingus in their mission to make the air travel to Ireland the most painful experience possible. The approval has to come from the European Commission, which will start an investigation into RyanAir’s intentions tomorrow. The June bid would value the deal at almost €700m, which Aer Lingus shareholders find ridiculous or at least not enough. read article

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is counteracting is innate need as a European authority to support [over-] regulation and has spoken out AGAINST the strict Basel III regulation. These rules set out by the Basel committee on banking supervision concern, among other things, the liquidity coverage ratio of banks. That is, in less fancy words, how much money is to be put aside for all investments made, because you never know, the world economy might blow up. Right. That happened. So even people sceptical of regulation like myself can kind of see the point that the Basel III accords are trying to make. But the ECB, in its desperate effort to keep Europe together, is now speaking out against them, due to their impact on lending. Bizarrely enough, the Bank of France agrees (?). read article

Also, it’s one of those weeks where we’re awaiting US GDP data again (preliminary annualized GDP growth), leaving us just about 24 hours to speculate about the markets’ reaction, Bernanke’s reaction and the impact on the presidential election.